PLblog

2006-08-14T17:30:00.000-07:00

Fascist whines about PLP nailing him

Sadly, he survived.

2006-08-14T17:20:00.000-07:00

PLP womps some racist ass

A more recent video produced by the predecessors of the fascist Minuteklan.

2006-08-14T16:12:00.000-07:00

Watch PLP kick some fascist ass in 1975!

Part 1 on YouTube of a documentary featuring PLP beating the shit out of fascist scum!

Bringing on the Fascism

2006-05-18T05:38:00.000-07:00

If anyone missed Bush's recent public address announcing his new fascist plans for "immigration reform," you can watch all 16+ minutes of it here.

Militant Liars

2006-05-18T05:19:00.000-07:00

How does one lie, but do it militantly? One possible answer is by becoming a writer for the SWP rag, the Militant. In the most recent issue (5/22/06), Militant writer Sam Manuel opines,

In 1938 the CP-led unions in New York organized a May Day parade to the accompaniment of patriotic songs. Placards and banners in the march denounced German fascism but made no mention of Washington’s war preparations. In spite of that, ILGWU locals declined to take part in the flag-waving parade and held their own May Day rally. The Socialist Workers Party held May Day meetings in several cities, opposing the imperialist war moves and commemorating the Russian Revolution. After the imperialist slaughter began, the U.S. Stalinists and Social Democrats buried May Day celebrations altogether in the name of “national unity.” For decades the bosses thought that, while May 1 continued to be celebrated around the world, they had killed it in the United States.

Manuel abruptly cheers up, writing "Today, however, with millions of foreign-born workers joining the ranks of the working class and bringing their traditions of struggle, May Day is being reborn in this country as a day of international working-class struggle."

I would be counted among the last to deny the profound influence of the foreign-born workers who turned out for May 1 this year. However, I find it remarkably hard to believe that Manuel is completely unware of the fact that PL has publicly celebrated May Day for over 35 years, in marches on both coasts. This might have made it difficult for the bosses to think that "they had killed [May Day] in the United States," if for no other reason that we have led some of our May Day marches directly by the White House. Of course, to the folks of the once-Trotskyist-now-Castroist SWP, who publish the Militant, we're just a bunch of "Stalinists," so perhaps we just don't count.

Arguably more disingenuous is the statement that in 1938 "The Socialist Workers Party held May Day meetings in several cities, opposing imperialist war moves and commemorating the Russian Revolution." At this time the SWP was firmly Trotskyist. If one can put aside the fact that at this very time Trotsky was plotting with his own--and for all intensive purposes--Fifth Column to depose the Stalin leadership in the USSR during threatening Fascist aggression, and making contacts with the Germans and Japanese fascists, one could still take issue with the SWP's stance that WWII was simply a fight between two imperialist alliances, instead of the heroic struggle of the Soviet peoples against Fascist world domination. If by "commemorating the Russian Revolution" Manuel means "hoping to reverse the Russian Revolution and objectively supporting the forces of Fascism," then his hacky piece would be marginally more truthful. Of course, that's not what he meant. The only thing the SWP is "militant" about is lying through their teeth.

PL has carried forth the banner of revolutionary communism from the tomb of the old CP, and advanced its line significantly. We have celebrated May Day with public marches for decades, and we will continue to do so. In the end, I'm not so sorry the SWP has felt inclined to gloss over this as though it never happened. When these class-traitors spread blatant lies about something as important as the history of May Day in the U.S., you know we're on the right track.

It's Not Just Bush...

2006-05-17T12:26:00.000-07:00

42nd Street.

Update: I'm still adding photos to the May Day 2006 post, so keep checking it.

World Can't Wait...for what?

2006-05-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

Their message is "drive out the Bush regime." Their name is World Can't Wait (WCW). To some, they are merely another coalition of liberals and leftists; to others they are yet another in a growing list of RCP front groups. Both interpretations contain some degree of accuracy. The reality would seem to be a bit of both. While not even WCW denies the presence of RCPers in its ranks, the organization's website tries to allay the fears of more liberal types by stating, "Supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party helped initiate it. They have said they're in it because they think it's absolutely urgent to get rid of this regime, that it would both lift a huge burden from the world and would also give people a sense of their own potential power, and they think all that would open up avenues to get to the society they want. Same as a whole lot of other people in World Can't Wait - which, by the way, includes Greens, Christians, Republicans, anarchists, Muslims, Jews, feminists, Democrats, pacifists, and people who claim no affiliation - who also think it's urgent to drive out the Bush Regime and who also think it can help lead to bigger changes that they want in society, coming from their own viewpoints." In other words, yeah there are RCPers, but there's lots of other folks too. Mostly, the RCP just helped "initiate" WCW--another way of basically saying the RCP founded WCW.

While RCP cadre should feel free to correct me in the comments section if I'm factually inaccurate in writing this, it seems WCW is the latest manifestation of the RCP's grand strategy: "Create public opinion, seize power." The idea behind this isn't really any more complicated than the slogan itself. By creating enough anti-Bush public opinion, the RCP hopes this will create the historical circumstances necessary to facilitate a revolution.

Whether or not this is a truly workable strategy is perhaps another post entirely. But the slogan of WCW, "drive out the Bush regime," begs the question: and replace it with what? The world can't wait when it comes to driving out the Bush regime, but what will "the world" get in return? In this regard,WCW's ends seem rather nebulous. The WCW website succeeds admirably in (not) answering this question in a fashion only Scott McClellan could truly appreciate: "If we do it [drive out the Bush regime] through a mass movement like this we will be a hell of a lot closer to ending this obscene war in Iraq, to ending the American torture camps at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and who knows where else, to stopping religious fanatics from deciding who makes the laws, to the right to abortion not being under imminent threat, etc." But this doesn't quite answer the question of what will replace the Bush regime. How about, "the first thing that 'comes next' [after driving out the Bush regime] will be an energized people, in their millions, that have lifted their heads and are finally acting for basic social justice changing the political mood and ethos of the country." So driving out the Bush regime will energize people. Again, all this response really does is dodge the broader question of what exactly WCW is fighting for, other than getting rid of Bush and his ilk. Certainly, if this goal were accomplished, people mighty feel more energized. But more importantly, the Bush regime will just be replaced by another group of capitalist mouthpieces.

Unfortunately, if you're really curious about the ultimate goal of WCW short of tossing Bush & Co. out on their coattails, you'll have to settle for "After that, there are people in 'World Can't Wait' who are working for everything from reforming the Democratic party, to building a 3rd party to revolution." In other words, after WCW is successful in ridding the world of the Bush administration, WCW folks will be working on, you know, like, stuff. You know, like, the same stuff they were working on before and during the Bush regime: reforming the Democratic party, working to build third parties, or organizing for revolution. The only difference will be, they'll be doing it under a different set of capitalists. No matter how many regimes you manage to drive out, there will always be a next one, a point WCW is careful not to address. And for a good reason: they can't address it. If they did, it would mean endorsing continued reforms or a movement toward violent revolution. If the leadership of the RCP understands anything at all, they understand that a call for revolution (as opposed to a call to simply remove one regime only to be replaced by another) would negate the entire purpose of a "united front" like WCW. After all, if the goal of WCW were anti-capitalist revolution, what would distinguish it from the RCP itself? At best WCW merely provides a questionably more fertile ground for the RCP to get other WCWers to think, "Gee, the RCP isn't so scary after all. Maybe I'll check them out." But I don't really think that's why the RCP does WCW. I'm not so cynical to really think it's all just some grand recruiting drive. I think it's a genuine effort further their broader program of "creating public opinion."

Yet isn't that the rub of it? We don't need to drive out the Bush regime, we need to drive out capitalism. That's what the world really can't wait for.

Pick a Bigger Weapon

2006-05-11T14:49:00.000-07:00

It's been some time since the Coup's previous and ill-distributed album, Party Music. While I managed to get my hands on their newest release, Pick a Bigger Weapon--nicely timed up with May Day--well in advance, it's taken me some time to listen to it enough so I could write a quasi-comptent review. And here it is.

Partly due to the controversy surrounding the original and never-released cover art of Party Music (created before 9/11, depicting Boots and Pam detonating the WTC with a bass tuner), and partly because of their move to a bigger label (Epitaph), Pick a Bigger Weapon has already received its fair share of press in the mainstream. (One of the upsides of this coverage has been a lot of interviews where Boots name drops PLP.) In all the reviews I've read so far, it's being hailed as the Coup's best release to date. I suppose this makes me the dissenting opinion. Don't get me wrong--it's a good album. But ever since Party Music was released, Boots has mellowed out quite a bit. Compare the new album to, say, Steal This Album, or the two LPs preceding it, and you'll notice the difference right away. While the production quality has increased significantly, the communist battle anthems seem to have decreased proportionately. The politics are still golden: no pandering to nationalism, no sexism, one track even promotes G.I. rebellion, etc., but the rage behind the humor has cooled off significantly and given way to a number of slow jams, and even toned down vocals.

Anyone familiar with the group's previous releases will notice the increased number of "slow jamz"-style tracks on the record ("I Just Wanna...," "Baby Let's Have...," "MindFuck," and maybe "Tiffany") as well as generally laid-back or happy-go-lucky sounding tunes ("The Stand," "ShoYoAss," "I Love Booster!"). That said, there's some bumpin' tracks too. Most notably are "We Are The Ones," "My Favorite Mutiny," "Ass-Breath Killas," and "Captain Sterling's Little Problem." There are perhaps fewer guest appearances on this album than on Party Music, but they include some true greats: Black Thought, Talib Kweli, and even Jello Biafra.

A lot of critics seem to be happy about the shift in tone. While I can appreciate some more relaxed tracks--maybe one or two of them--four or more seems a bit overboard. In a period of increasing racism and fascist repression, workers need something a litte more consistently militant to be their soundtrack to the struggle. Here's hoping the next Coup release can fulfill that desperate need.

Out of five (red?) stars, I give Pick a Bigger Weapon three stars. A handful of the tracks will fit nicely on your Coup mixtape, but by the second listen to the album in its entirety, it's likely you'll find yourself skipping a few tracks.

May Day Photos

2006-05-07T07:15:00.000-07:00

For about 35 years now, PLP has held a May Day march in working class neighborhoods in New York and California on the Saturday closest to May 1. This year was the first where we marched as a contingent in a bigger/reformist anti-war march in NYC. Here are some photos thanks to an assortment of flickr accounts. In a couple, we're seen crammed in next to some RCP folks and others from World Can't Wait. Click on photos for a (slightly) larger version.

Why Socialism Is Not Enough

2006-02-27T08:18:00.000-08:00

Excerpt of the article “Contradicting Marxism” From The Communist, Issue No. 5, Fall, 1991.

Socialism is a way of organizing society in which a proletarian class dictatorship administers a capitalist economy. In socialist society private capitalism, and the private capitalist class, are both basically replaced by a state-owned capitalism. Class relationships change, certain economic laws change and a redistribution of wealth initially takes place, but production for sale continues, labor remains a commodity, surplus value continues to be produced by the working class and a hierarchical social structure, in which the working class continues to be dominated by its bosses (now state officials) remains.

The class-conscious, pro-communist workers put up with this only because they are persuaded it will soon end. They are convinced their sacrifices are the way to communism in the near future. As long as they think this, production zooms upward.

Meanwhile the institution they are relying on to move society out of socialism and into communism, the revolutionary party, which controls the proletarian dictatorship, is changing its members and its focus. The new managers and intellectuals (who are coalescing into the state capitalist class) are leading the revolution into a new phase--“the battle for production.” As leaders of the revolution they have great prestige, and they come to dominate the party, and make it an instrument of their concerns and needs. The revolution is redefined. Instead of being a working class movement for an egalitarian society, it becomes a movement to expand and increase state capitalist production. Communism is something for the remote future--when there is enough production to justify it.

To keep the support of the working class, the state capitalist class, through the party which is now its own, continues to pump out the old pro-communist slogans, which the workers find increasingly false and nauseating, and finally meaningless, since communist ideas are being used to consolidate oppressive state capitalism. Any organized pro-communist opposition is crushed, and its organizers arrested, by the state capitalist-controlled police. With no actual communist leadership to oppose this oppressive situation and to counter the lying official ideology with a revolutionary movement for a proletarian dictatorship, the working class moves to defend itself in the primitive way of every social group in capitalist society--by refusing to sell its commodity unless it gets a higher price--that is, by refusing to work until it gets higher pay and more commodities to buy, and also by turning against the official institutions of its oppressor, the official state capitalist “Marxism,” and against the ruling “Marxist” party.

Based on this analysis, PL concluded that it is impossible for socialism to lead, much less “grow into,” classless communism, as Marx and Lenin hoped it might. These hopes were the product of the fact that they were writing in the period before socialism was born, and before any practical experience could show how socialism would actually develop. The revolutionary Marxist program no longer contains socialism. It has proven as helpful to the cause of working class emancipation from wage slavery as a sore throat is to a singer.

[Other “communist” parties] ignore history. These “defenders of Marxism” believe socialism is an irreplaceable keystone of Marxism. This makes them defenders not of Marxism, but of the conspiracy theory of history. They think the socialist countries were doing just fine until they were all victims, one after another, of conspiratorial coups. The coup makers then simply “restored” capitalism. Where did these plotters come from? How was this restoration possible? [These groups] don’t bother to say. They don’t seem too interested in how socialism really worked.

Setting The Record Straight: Progressive Labor & SDS

2006-02-27T08:01:00.000-08:00

The ghost of SDS is alive and well in the anti-war (and more broadly, anti-globalization) movement. There have been more than a few times where, as an open member of PL, I have been scorned by other activist-types for some ostensible “sins of the father” in an effort to discredit myself and PL rather than debate the substantive issues at hand. The audacity of using this shopworn, tired technique never ceases to amaze me. At its base, it is simply anti-communism, and to the extent that it is covered up by the supposed “SDS experience” or “SDS split,” the facts are woefully lost, glossed over, or ignored.

On both the anarchist and liberal left in particular--it is strange, indeed, how much they hold in common--there is a deep-rooted paranoia of “communist takeover” of broad coalitions and student organizations. This paranoia flows from the years of SDS, and the massive amount of misinformation regarding this time propagated by the hacks of the SDS Old Guard, and other radical-turned-liberal SDSers sellouts who pathetically turn their increasingly irrelevant SDS street credit into dollars and cents, by peddling reminiscences to Left magazines in the form of articles and interviews. This way, by the time they finally die they will be able to state categorically that they never actually worked a day of their lives.

In this light, it is time to set the record straight about SDS and its relationship with Progressive Labor.

Perhaps the most “authoritative” account of the SDS years is Kirkpatrick Sale’s 1973 book, SDS. What is so strange about Sale’s book is the way his data, taken on its own, stands at odds with his interpretation of it. While it would hardly be correct to state that Sale gives a free pass to any organization within SDS, let alone SDS itself and much of its leadership, no one could argue that he comes down the hardest on Progressive Labor. Sale perpetuates the main myths about PLP in SDS:

1. That PLP entered into SDS solely on the basis that it was a fertile recruiting ground for new members (this feeds the communist “infiltration” myth today with regards to mass movements).

2. That PLP insidiously took over SDS (this feeds the communist “hijacking” and “parasitism” myths today with regards to mass movements).

3. That PLP caused the split in SDS (this feeds the myth prevalent today that communists invariably destroy all they come in contact with).

4. That PLP was expelled from SDS.

Yet Sale’s own data proves the opposite of these myths:

1. That PLP entered into SDS to legitimately raise its viewpoints like any other organization, faction, or independent student. In this case, the viewpoint expressed was anti-imperialism. As Sale’s accounts for himself, PLP put forth serious, principled proposals to this effect, some of which were adopted with overwhelming support in workgroups and then quashed by SDS’s NC.

2. That PLP won over large numbers of SDSers and the support of others because of its relentless anti-imperialist, openly communist line. Sale’s own data shows that people in SDS were drawn to PLP by virtue of the merit of its political line, not because of some behind-the-scenes Machiavellian maneuvering.

3. That RYM & RYM II members (Dorhn, Klonsky, and Rudd among others) caused, created, and initiated the split in SDS.

4. That the RYM & RYM II factions, insofar as they “expelled” anyone, merely succeeded in expelling themselves by walking out on the majority of the SDS membership present at the split convention, after exhibiting the very Machiavellian strategy PLP has historically been accused of in SDS. Sale’s own data on this point--in spite of his own interpretation--is backed up by an undercover FBI agent’s own account of the split and so-called “expulsion.”

Infiltration & Takeover

Sale writes “PL was forced to look to the student ranks, chiefly to SDS, where recruitment possibilities seemed much more promising. ... The fact that so many present PLers were students or recent students meant that they would be able to understand and infiltrate student groups far more easily than they would blue-collar ones” (323). The recipe for this conclusion Sale concocts is one part reality, two parts liberal anti-communism. First, Sale quotes then-chairperson of PL, Milt Rosen. Sale writes that “The Progressive Labor Party’s offensive within SDS in the summer and fall of 1968 was not a matter of accident or good fortune: it was a calculated political move based on a decision of the party’s national committee to emphasize recruitment of new members into the party.” An organization that wants to recruit new members? Whoever heard of such a thing? SDS, for example, probably wanted to stay as small and insular as possible. According to sales when Rosen said, “How do we move the struggle from one level to another? ... The revolutionary movement doesn’t come out of the air. You have to raise political ideas among a lot of people. That is the most important thing you can do. It gives the revolutionary Left, our party, much more strength and footing,” (322) what he really meant was “We are going to launch an offensive within SDS as part of a calculated move to emphasize recruitment of new members into the party.” Unfortunately, the only way to arrive at this conclusion is to mix actual data with the author’s own anti-communist sentiment, as nothing in Sale’s data in itself supports the conclusion at which he arrives.

In fact, the only data in Sale’s possession that points to some underhanded effort by PL to join SDS simply to recruit new members is here-say from political rivals of PL not so skilled at masking their jealousy. For example, prominent SDSer Greg Calvert, is quoted by Sale as saying, “I am finally convinced that a truly revolutionary movement must be built out of the deepest revolutionary demands and out of the strongest revolutionary hopes...” (208). Yet Calvert did not seem so interested in “a truly revolutionary movement,” when Brooklyn SDS member Sue Simensky wrote to him that Jeff Gordon (a prominent PLPer in SDS) “‘represents the views of most SDSers’ at Brooklyn College and that the PL position was winning adherents at New York regional meetings; traditional SDSers like Max, Ireland, Bob Gottlieb, Sue Eanet, and Sarah Murphy, she said, are loud talkers but people find them ‘pretty much irrelevant.’” Calvert lashed out in response, Sale writes, that “PL politics are not SDS politics and why is it no one can talk from an SDS perspective? ... I know that cadre discipline is impressive, but I do not think that Maoism is the answer to our problems” (206).

Clearly, many SDSers were won over to PL’s line. The fact that, for people like Calvert and Sale, this must be a sign that PL only wanted to be involved with SDS to gain new members, is patronizing of the good intelligence of rank-and-file SDS members, who evidently needed to be “protected” from the big bad communists. We see that Sale’s data clearly demonstrates a free and willing support of PLP’s ideas, and students did join PLP. How this inherently demonstrates that PLP joined only for new recruits, Sale leaves up to the reader: just remember, they’re communists.

At numerous points throughout Sale’s book, we are given sneak previews of the “takeover to come.” As Sale writes, initially there was no real fear of a PL takeover. “At this point, the idea of a PL take over or ‘Communist infiltration’ was still regarded largely as a joke. ... The PLers were thought to have some good ideas, but their ‘Old Lefty phrasemongering,’ as it was called, and their general squareness of dress and attitude chilled most of the other SDSers; Mao and his little red book excited only laughter on the convention floor. The overwhelming attitude was still that the Old Left was old-fashioned and that SDS was too amorphous to get taken over by anything anyway” (193). Sale, quoting SDS leader Carl Oglesby: “Further, it is hard to see how a group could be ‘taken over’ unless it has handles of power that can be seized, some ‘central apparatus’ that can enforce orders. SDS has no such apparatus--only a beleaguered hot-spot in Chicago--and it is a main hard point with us that it shall never shall” (157).

Even Old Guard SDSer Don McKelvey knew that PLP was not aiming to “take over” SDS. Sale quotes--as a footnote, of course--McKelvey, who after a 1967 convention, wrote in a newsletter, “PL people are quite active in SDS, the only ‘ideological Left’ people who were (or who were evident); they seem to be accepted; they certainly were, in general, at the convention ... . I get the sense they were a ‘semi-caucus’ at the convention, and I expect they certainly made disciplined decisions beforehand about what they were going to do. But I got no sense whatever ... that there was any attempt to ‘take over’--they were simply pushing their politics, which were the only genuinely hard-line politics (i.e, definite and clear politics) there” (author’s emphasis). Just so we don’t take McKelvey’s comments too much to heart, however, Sale, in the same footnote, lets us know he might be sympathetic to Progressive Labor. Sales writes that while independent, “[McKevley’s] politics were not so far from PL’s...” (241).

Farther along in his own book, even Sale contradicts the notion that PL wanted to “take over” SDS, albeit couched in terms of “recruiting.” Sale writes, “there is no indication that PL was planning to try to take over the organization, nor would it have made much sense for them: SDS as it was, after all, provided by far the largest source of PL recruits ... and it was far larger and more successful than anything PL could hope to produce under its own egis” (394).

Again, we see crazy things like “facts,” when viewed through the paranoid lens of anti-communism by Sale, can become a bit blurry or get lost altogether. Sale’s own data, the most contradictory portions of which he simply footnotes, shows that people were drawn to PL’s line because they had “the only genuinely hard-line politics” “i.e., definite and clear politics” in SDS. If SDS leadership wished, for some reason, to prevent people from joining PL, perhaps this was their own failure for not having any “definite and clear politics,” as McKelvey so succinctly put it.

Split & Expulsion

The most prevalent myths remaining about PLP and SDS today are that PL precipitated and caused a split in SDS at the 1969 convention in Chicago, and that the SDS leadership then expelled PLP to preserve SDS, untainted by PL (with its “definite and clear politics”). Yet the accounts of these events are clear, even by Sale’s own data, although not his interpretation of it. To verify what Sale writes, we can couple it with the account of an undercover Federal operative present at the split.

Part of these myths is another myth: that PL was maneuvering behind the scenes to bend SDS to its will. The evidence, however, shows the opposite: the SDS leadership in RYM and RYM II were doing the maneuvering to maintain control of SDS against any advance of PL’s line. The first vote of the convention was whether or not to allow a press presence. PL put forth a proposal to bar the press from the event. Sale writes that “the NO [SDS leadership] regarded the press vote as an indication of a serious threat to its power, and that set the tone for much of the remainder of the convention” (495).

Then, Sale writes, “Jeff Gordon, speaking for the PLers, protested that there weren’t enough workshops on the NO’s proposed agenda, to which Klonsky [an RYM II member in SDS leadership] replied that the NO had decided workshops would only be ‘hunting grounds’ for PLers to operate on new and innocent SDSers. No one thought much of that argument, and the vote was overwhelming for expanding the number of workshops” (495). In this case, who is guilty of Machiavellian power-play maneuvering? Clearly not PLP.

The power-politicking came to a head when the RYM/RYM II (Essentially, Weatherman/BARU-RCP) SDS leadership, consisting primarily of Bernardine Dorhn (Weatherman), Mike Klonsky (RYM II), and Mark Rudd (Weatherman) touted out members of the Black Panthers, the Brown Berets, and the Young Lords in an effort to “humiliate PL” (Sale’s words, 396) in light of its rejection of nationalism as a reactionary political philosophy. This is where the FBI informant’s document comes in handy and Sale’s own work falls somewhat short in what may have been a damage control effort on his part to save historical face for the Panthers. As the agent wrote, “This was a prelude to their plan to ‘get’ the ‘racist’ Worker-Student Alliance [PLP].”

First the Peurto Rican Young Lords spoke. Then the Mexican Brown Berets. Finally, came Rufus “Chaka” Walls--a leader of the Illinois Black Panther Party--to the podium. What happened next will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the worst backfires ever. Much of the convention had revolved around the issue of male chauvinism. On this point, Walls had something to contribute. Here it is well worth quoting the FBI report at length:

“Blacks have the right to self-determination,” he shouted. Immediately the hall rang with cheers. “I’m gonna tell you motherfuckers, blacks have a right to choose. I have seen a lot of things around here I don’t like. People says [sic] blacks don’t have a right to choose as blacks. You motherfuckers better get yourselves together.”

Walls next turned to the feminists [sic] issue. “About all this male chauvinism,” he said. “I’m for penis power myself.”
“Revolutionary women have a lot to contribute,” Walls said. “I’m glad to see they’re [sic] enough women around here for all the revolution. The way the women contribute is by getting laid.”

RYM strategy was fast becoming a disaster. In the back of the hall WSA people chanted, “Fight male chauvinism. Fight male chauvinism.”

But Walls was out of control. “Superman,” he shouted, “was a punk. He never even tried to fuck Lois Lane.”

The chant swelled. Walls could not continue as the din increased. Momentarily Jewell Cook, another Panther, replaced Walls at the microphone and pleaded for quiet. “The Worker-Student Alliance,” he said, “comes here and makes a lot of noise, but they’re not leading any fights on campuses.” A loud cheer arose from members of the Revolutionary Youth Movement. “But,” Cook said, “you got to know I’m with my brother. I’m for penis power myself. The position of women in the movement * * *.” [Author's Note: Asterisks present in original document]

The chant against male chauvinism grew louder as the delegates guessed what was coming.

“The position of women,” roared Cook, “should be prone.” (It is assumed that Cook meant “supine.”)

With this utterance the RYM strategy virtually collapsed. ...

Sale’s version of events coincides on nearly every point, but with less detail to exact wording in some places:

Then came Rufus (“Chaka”) Walls, the minister of information of the Illinois Black Panther Party, a somewhat older man, with dark wrap-around glasses, flanked by arms-folded “bodyguards,” and he lit into the PL “armchair Marxists” with all the macho rhetoric the Panthers had become famous for. He sneered at PL’s claims of being a vanguard party and declared that the Panthers were the true vanguard because they had been out shedding blood and the white left hadn’t even shot rubber bands yet. And then Walls began talking, quite unexpectedly, about women’s liberation: we believe in women in the Movement, he said, we believe in the freedom of love and all that, we believe in “pussy power.” Most of the fifteen hundred or so SDSers were stunned--enlightened or not, by the middle of 1969 you didn’t go around saying things like that at Movement meetings. Cries of “Fight male chauvinism” were started all over the hall, picked up delightedly by the PL section on the left of the main floor. Walls paused: we’ve got some Puritan’s in the crowd, he went on, apparently misunderstanding the source of the audience’s discomfort, and then added out of the blue, “Superman was a punk because he never even tried to fuck Lois Lane.” That did it. The chant swelled, from PLers who sensed an unexpected reversal of fortunes, but from most others as well: “Fight male chauvinism. FIGHT MALE CHAUVINISM!” Walls, unable to continue shrugged and walked off the podium. The NO leaders, bewildered, quickly conferred. Then Panther leader Jewel Cook took the microphone to try to pick up the pieces with an all-out attack on PL. They aren’t leading any fights on campus, he charged, like the Panthers are--you call up Chairman Mao and ask him who’s the vanguard party in the U.S. [Author's Note: This is interesting, only insofar as, until split with the Chinese, PLP was the only Communist party in the U.S. officially recognized by the Chinese Communist Party] The RYM people at last had a chance to cheer, but then Cook continued. But you got to know, he said, that I’m with my brother in this, I’m for pussy power myself--the “fight male chauvinism” chant began again--and the brother was only trying to say to you sisters that you have a strategic position in the movement--the chants were even louder now because everyone knew what was coming, an old line of Stokely Cannichael’s from the SNCC days--the position for you sisters...is prone! “FIGHT MALE CHAUVINISM, FIGHT MALE CHAUVINISM,” the chant was deafening, resounding off the cement-block walls and filling the huge hall. “The house,” reported the Guardian, “was in pandemonium.” The RYM strategy lay shattered. The Panthers had humiliated not PL but their own supporters, and in doing so had neatly managed by a single stroke to turn to dross both of RYM’s chief theoretical weapons [against PL]: its alliance with the vanguard Panthers and its support for women’s liberation.

This sent the RYM/RYM II leadership of the NO into a tailspin. They began to argue, and eventually decided to send the Panthers back to the podium. Unfortunately they didn’t do any better the next time around. By the agent’s account,

This time Cook delivered a written speech. "The Panthers and the Young Lords and the Brown Berets have gotten together," he began, "and adopted a common position. The Progressive Labor-Worker-Student Alliance faction is acting like pigs. They are holding back black and brown people's struggle for self-determination. Immediately after the convention chicken shit P.L. is going to change its position because P.L. is chicken shit." [Author's Note: PL did not change its position on nationalism--to which Cook refers--after the convention, or at any point in the future]

The WSA delegates sat silently as Cook continued. "P.L. acts like cops. They act like counterrevolutionaries. P.L. is the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky." A few shouts of protest arose. "Chairman Mao supports liberation for all oppressed people."

With this WSA began to chant. "Read Mao, read Mao, read Mao."

"P.L. is counterrevolutionary," Cook yelled.

The WSA faction changed its chant to, "Bastard, bastard, bastard!"

Several Black Panthers walked toward the Progressive Labor Party's literature table on the left side of the hall. As the Panthers stood glaring at those behind the table, Jeff Gordon and John Pennington [PLers] dispatched a group of WSA members who soon surrounded the angry Panthers. The chants continued and soon grew deafening.

Michael Klonsky walked to the microphone and tried to speak. The WSA roared, "Rebuttal, rebuttal." Klonsky glared at the chanters. Ignoring him, Jeff Gordon rose and, surrounded by a dozen WSA delegates, strode to the microphone. His cadre wore red and white buttons on their left shoulders, the insignia of the new WSA security force.

Speaking slowly, Gordon declared, "the Progressive Labor Party will not be intimidated out of SDS." Roaring applause followed. "We support national liberation all over the world. We support the Black Panther Party. When we criticize the Panthers it's in a comradely and constructive fashion. We support self-determination for all the black people in the U.S." As Gordon stepped down the hall resounded to the chant, "fight racism. Fight racism." The leadership of both RYM factions gathered at the rear of the podium. They had lost control of both the agenda and the delegates.

After this point there is a lapse in Sale’s account and the agent’s. Both rejoin when the RYMers stormed off stage into a meeting, leaving the rest of the conference, including PL, to carry on. Sale writes,

The NO leaders—Klonsky, Dohrn, Rudd, and Robbins prominent among them—hastily gathered in a knot at the back of the stage, in heated discussion. Finally Rudd stepped to the microphone and proposed an hour's recess, both to let things cool off and to give the leaders a chance to figure out what to do next. But before the vote could be taken Dohrn wrenched herself away from Klonsky, who was trying to restrain her at the back of the stage, and marched to the rostrum, hair flying, jaw set. We're going to have to decide, she shouted into the microphone, whether we can continue to stay in the same organization with people who deny the right of self-determination to the oppressed—and anyone who wants to talk about that, follow me into the next room. She spun on her heel and marched off the stage down a corridor to the side. It may have been a planned performance, but if so there weren't many people in on the plan. Klonsky looked stunned and momentarily undecided, Rudd paused and stared into the crowd before following after, and RYM supporters throughout the hall only slowly and somewhat uncertainly got to their feet, maybe fifty at first, then slowly another fifty more. PL went into more chants: "Sit down. Sit down, Stay and fight, Stay and fight." A few dozen more people rose, and a procession out of the hall slowly took shape: "No split! No split! No split!" from the PL section. Finally, with perhaps two hundred in all, the RYM supporters crowded into the corridor at the front, now with their fists raised, and shouting back, "Join us! Join us!" and "Two, three, many Vietnams." That last was an unconsciously ironic chant now, for there was no longer any doubt what was happening in Chicago: two, three, many SDSs.  By the Federal agent’s account,

At 9:45 p.m. Rudd walked to the microphone. "If we go on this way," he said, "we will have fights, not political discussion. I suggest we recess for an hour. Frankly I am suggesting this not only to let the situation cool, we want this caucus to decide what to do."

On the platform behind him, RYM leaders argued Rudd's proposal. Bernardine Dohrn was talking heatedly with Klonsky, who had a pacifying hand on one of hers. Suddenly Dohrn spun away and marched to the microphone.

"Some of us are going to have to decide," she shouted, "whether our principles allow us to stay in the same organization with people who deny the right of self-determination to the oppressed. Anyone who would like a discussion on that, follow me into the next room." She strutted off the podium to a corridor on the left which opened to a large empty room. Rudd moved quickly behind Dohrn. Slowly the rest of the RYM hierarchy followed. Around the room people began to rise and walk out.
The WSA organization started chants. They screamed for the delegates to sit down. Some picked up chairs and banged them against the floor. Others chanted, "Stay and fight." Despite the pleading, at least a third of the people walked out after Bernardine Dohrn. It is suggested that the SDS has never been a unified organization since.

Accounts of what followed are virtually uniform, with one exception: Sale writes,

A little before eleven o'clock that Saturday night, with the statement drafted and approved, Klonsky went out to talk to Jared Israel and tell him that the caucus wanted to come back in and address the rump. Israel agreed, and both men pledged that there would be no violence. Israel made the announcement and the PLers suspended their meeting—they had been holding workshops and passing resolutions all the while the RYM people were out of the room—and waited, curious and apparently fearful of trouble ahead.

Whereas the undercover agent more insightfully concludes,

At approximately 11:00 p.m. Jared Israel of the Worker-Student Alliance concluded a private meeting with Michael Klonsky. He returned to the main floor and asked for attention. "Look" he shouted, "I have information that the RYM people are finally coming back here. When they do, please don't hiss or chant. All we need is for a fight. Then the Chicago pigs will bust us all."

It was subsequently learned that Israel was urging docility because Klonsky and Dohrn had urged it upon him. Docility was critical to the careful plan which had been devised by the RYM delegates.

After this point, both accounts of the split (“expulsion”) are fairly uniform. The agent’s report continues,

A file of RYM women left the closed room. A dozen marched through the passageway into the main hall and formed a line about the podium. The girls stood shoulder to shoulder saying nothing. The podium itself was unoccupied.
Next a contingent of men wearing green arm bands entered the hall. They encircled the women in two columns.

A double file of delegates followed. Ten Black Panthers were in the lead. The file marched to a point in front of the hall, split into two columns and strung themselves out until the WSA was completely encircled.

It was apparent that the WSA had been duped by the RYM factions. Their disarrayed people were sprawled about in workshops and were completely surrounded. Presently the RYM elite marched unchallenged to the podium.

Bernardine Dohrn stepped forward.

"In the last 24 hours" she cried, "we in the next room have been discussing principles. We support the national liberation struggles of the Vietnamese, the American Blacks and all other colonials. We support all who take up gun [sic] against U.S. imperialism. We support the governments of China, Albania, North Viet Nam and North Korea. We support Women's Liberation."

Backed by the security guard wearing the green arm bands Dohrn continued. "All members of the Progressive Labor Party-Worker-Student Alliance and all who do not support these principles are objective racists and counterrevolutionaries. They are no longer members of SDS."

Too late, the Worker-Student Alliance began to chant. Pointing fingers at the podium in rhythm, the WSA delegates cried, "Shame! Shame! Shame!" But Bernardine Dohrn's group, having declared itself the winner, was walking out. With sheer force and with trickery, the minority had ironically read the majority out of the SDS.

Sale’s account is as follows:

Soon a column of women filed out of the caucus room and surrounded the base of the stage, hands stuck belligerently in jeans, faces unsmiling. Next a file of men, the NO’s "security force," strode out and stood in a line in front of the women, arms folded across their chests, Panther-style. And the rest of the caucus marched in, slowly filing along the walls under the wary eyes of PL's own "security force" along the perimeters. There was an eerie hush. Finally Klonsky, Rudd, and Dohrn came through the corridor and mounted the stage. Dohrn was given the microphone. For the last twenty-four hours, she told the gathering, peering out over the podium into the smoky and ill-lit hall, the SDS caucus has been discussing principles; with that, she was off on another speech, twenty minutes of incisive invective, laying out every real or imagined sin of PL since its inception, quoting, citing, pinning, slashing, a performance so masterful that at least one person was convinced it must have been prepared days in advance. At last she paused. SDS can no longer live with people who are objectively racist, anticommunist, and reactionary. Progressive Labor Party members, people in the Worker-Student Alliance, and all others who do not accept our principles ... are no longer members of SDS.
 For a moment there was silence, and then the PLers started to giggle: a strange noise in this hall after all that had come before, a forced and awkward laughter of nervousness, the break of four days of tension. PLers quickly found their voices: "SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!" Dohrn glared down at the PLers and with a last shout into the microphone of "Long live the victory of people's war"—the slogan, from China's Lin Piao, was the closing line of the "Weatherman" statement—she stormed off the stage and led the walkout from the Coliseum. Hundreds, perhaps seven hundred in all, followed her, their fists raised, chanting a mélange of slogans—"Power to the people! Power to the people!" "Ho! Ho! Ho Chi Minh!"— out into the Chicago night.

While estimates of the numbers who walked out with Dohrn and the other RYMers vary, most of Sale’s own sources place it around 500, or a third of the crowd.

In other words, by both accounts, the Weathermen and RYM II, who controlled the SDS leadership--not PL--engaged in underhanded maneuvering through their use of the Panthers, Young Lords, Brown Berets, etc., and then plotted to “expel” PL from SDS. When it became clear that the majority of SDS would not go along with this, the SDS leadership phrased their walkout as them “expelling” PLP and anyone who supported them. This meant that, as the agent pointed out, a minority in SDS expelled the majority of its membership, proclaiming itself to be the “real SDS.” Then that minority raided the SDS offices for mailing lists--according to the agent, “Later that night, the RYM delegates secured the files and mailing lists and the names of contributors in the national office at 1608 West Madison Street.” From both accounts, PL wanted to maintain the unity of SDS, acted democratically within the organization, and were then treated to a failed bum’s rush by the Dohrn/Rudd/Klonsky crowd.

Conclusion

The evidence here is crystal clear. The Progressive Labor Party did not “infiltrate” SDS, its members acted openly as communists and members of PLP--hardly “infiltration.” Nor did PLP members “take over” SDS, or even try to, by any valid account. Nor did PLP precipitate a split in SDS, nor was the organization expelled from SDS. Rather, a confused minority simply declared PL expelled without any form of vote or consensus from the majority of SDS, and then walked out on that majority. Finally, it raided that majority’s National Office. The only way anything to the contrary of these points could be construed is through sheer anti-communist distortion.

Grover Furr, in his article, “Rise and Fall of the Anti-Vietnam War Movement in the U.S.,” writes that the ‘69 convention was in fact not the first time a move had been made to try and force PL out of SDS. Not only that, but Progressive Labor had been expecting it. Furr points out the intellectual dishonesty in the attacks against PLP, and demonstrates the contributions to SDS made by the group:

The 1968 convention was much larger than the one just a year before; SDS had become essentially a different organization in just one year. PLP leaders had warned that there would be an attempt to force PLP out of SDS. Others in SDS thought that PLP was exaggerating. The party's analysis was based on an understanding that liberals will resort to fascism when they are threatened. Sure enough, a prearranged outburst by a small, police-infested collection of anarchists prompted the National Office leadership to encourage anti-PL speeches, ending in an attempt to instigate mass chanting of "PL Out" to drive PLP out of the room and out of the organization. It failed. Many learned an important lesson. The anti-Communists had no unifying political principles except fear that they might no longer be in charge. When the anarchists got up and denounced PLP for being "Stalinists" who oppose freedom, the SDS National Office gang cheered and applauded. Then when the National Office gang attacked PLP for supposedly betraying Stalin because they found some quotes from Stalin that appeared to be at odds with PLP's line, you could see the anarchists applauding. Interestingly, on the stage encouraging the chanting was Carl Oglesby, who just a couple of years before wrote an impassioned defense of the right of communists to be in SDS.

Part of the attack was because PLP had begun to criticize the North Vietnamese leadership, who were calling for negotiations with the U.S. The only just solution for the Vietnamese people was a total withdrawal of U.S. imperialism, and the abolition of capitalism -- power to the workers. Any negotiations that would leave the Vietnamese people with less than that would be a sell-out. But even as PLP criticized the Vietnamese leadership, we continued to fight harder against U.S. imperialism than anyone else in the U.S. We organized strikes, boycotts, protests; we brought anti-imperialist ideas to hundreds of thousands of people; we led the way in spreading anti-imperialist sentiment to workers; we fought the police and drew some of the heaviest jail terms in the campus movement. The National Office gang could not convince many serious people that PLP was hurting the struggle.

PLP held its own because PLP members proved through action that we were working to build SDS harder than anyone. Quantitatively, PLP brought hundreds to SDS; qualitatively, the strategy of worker-student alliance gained considerable respect as a result of the France worker-student general strike. But nearly all the national offices stayed under the control of the anti-communist faction, who would soon play down their discredited line about middle class revolution and instead pretend to be Leninists, attacking PLP because we did not mechanically follow every word Lenin, Stalin, and Marx had written.

Indeed, if we read Furr at length, we see that,

Liberal anti-Communists outside the movement gave lots of money to the anti-PLP factions within SDS. And the government sent secret police agents, from city, county, and state police, FBI, CIA, and who knows what other agencies, into the movement for generally three purposes: informing, acting like fools or provocateurs, and trying to create splits within the movement. One Trotskyite group in Tennessee had more police agents in the group than regular members, which is no surprise because serious activists had no respect for them anyhow.

Anti-war demonstrations were happening all over. PLP members worked systematically to recruit people to SDS, to fight for the worker-student alliance strategy, and to start new SDS chapters. A serious effort by the SDS National Office leadership could have brought hundreds of new chapters and tens of thousands of new members into SDS. But the NO gang not only had rotten politics. They were incompetent. They were obsessed with PLP, suppressing articles from PLP members in SDS publications, frustrated that PLP was gaining support for the worker-student alliance strategy and recruiting students to the party. On at least one occasion, an SDS national leadership meeting degenerated into people standing on tables, throwing dishes, and screaming out drunken speeches about which ones of them hated PLP more than the others. The SDS National Office leadership hated PLP more than they hated the ruling class, and they focused their efforts on protecting their positions, rather than on fighting against imperialism. SDS literature was late in getting out, requests for new memberships were delayed or lost, and the opportunity to start hundreds of SDS chapters was also squandered away. The NO leadership did some organizing. It usually consisted of one of the leaders showing up on a campus, making a speech to hundreds of interested students, insulting them for not quitting school, or for being white, or for not being revolutionary enough, and then leaving the local organization disheartened and in a shambles. The other strategy they developed was to make unprincipled alliances with other leftist groups who were hostile towards PLP.

Furr demonstrates that far from using SDS as a recruiting ground--although certainly some SDSers did join PLP--the group in fact brought membership into SDS, both in terms of people already in PL who participated, as well as working “systematically to recruit people to SDS” (author’s emphasis). Furr correctly criticizes the SDS NO for failing to bring in a larger membership, which given Sale’s repeated statements about the disarray, disorder, and disorganization of the National Office, is believable. At one point Sale writes, “The decision not to set a national strategy, coupled with the downgrading of the NO and the belief that SDS could get along without a National Secretary, wrought much trouble in Chicago. A cluster of people put in time in the National Office, but most were woefully inexperienced” (143).

Sale repeatedly mentions mailings sitting in piles for months at a time without going out, high NO staff turnover, insufficient (and at times zero) contact with chapters throughout the U.S., and what was an essentially heavy-handed, dictatorial leadership from the NO by out-of-school, insular Old Guard SDSers, such as Paul Booth. Sale quotes Jeff Shero, VP of SDS, about his experience working under Booth: “I was destroyed by my first six months as SDS Vice President because I had come in with a vision and experiences about how people could relate to each other, like in the civil-rights movement. I was just kind of chewed up by the internal fighting, totally unprepared for that kind of thing, because I thought that if you had a disagreement with someone you just sat down and talked it out. I wasn’t very able to deal with [Booth’s] kind of stuff. By the time of the winter convention I was a psychological wreck.” Sale quotes another SDSer talking about the general structure of the NO: “Participatory democracy,” the SDSer said, “is nonexistent within the national office structure. [Working for SDS] is like getting saved by a traveling preacher, who you later find out is a drunkard and beats his wife” (147). These problems only worsened as the years went, through the “leadership” of Mike Klonsky and the split he helped create.

For PL, SDS was merely the beginning of many struggles to come. Most of the other organizations that came out of it can today be summed up by mere epilogues. The Weathermen are now defunct, although Bernardine Dorhn and Bill Ayers (who are now married) continue to revel in the past when it means a little more money; Mark Rudd and Todd Gitlin too. Bob Avakian, from RYM II/BARU eventually went on to found his own personality cult, the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. That PL still thrives while these others have merely passed on to a life of selling out (or as they likely consider it, “buying in”) is a testament to the correctness of our line and the collective leadership of the Party.

[Note: References to Sale's SDS refer to a .PDF version of the document, available free of charge online]

The Cult Of Personality

2006-02-22T10:08:00.000-08:00

Neither of us [Marx & Engels] cares a straw for popularity. A proof of this is, for example, that, because of aversion to any personality cult, I have never permitted the numerous expressions of appreciation from various countries with which I was pestered during the existence of the International to reach the realm of publicity, and have never answered them, except occasionally by a rebuke. When Engels and I first joined the secret Communist Society we made it a condition that everything tending to encourage superstitious beliefs in authority was to be removed from the statutes. Karl Marx

All our lives we fought against exalting the individual, against the elevation of the single person, and long ago we were over and done with the business of a hero, and her it comes up again: the glorification of the personality. This is not good at all. I am just like everybody else. V. I. Lenin

There is a dialectical relationship between authority, including “cults of personality”, of leading people on the one hand and of collectively on the other hand. Bob Avakian

On May Day, 2005, the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP,USA) changed the name of its newspaper, Revolutionary Worker, to simply Revolution. Explaining the shift, a statement put forth from the RCP read, “We believe this name change more fully reflects our revolutionary communist ideology and politics, and the enriched vision of a tribune of the people that has been pioneered by RCP Chairman Bob Avakian.” The statement was right about what thing: the name change does indeed more fully reflect the RCP’s ideology and politics, most pronounced by the removal of the word “worker” from the paper’s masthead.

The RCP--like the ISO and its organ, Socialist Worker--has always pandered to Lowest Common Denominator politics, ostensibly to make recruitment easier. Politically, RCP leaflets and articles are 90% “Bush is the incarnation of evil,” 10% lip service about how “the Democrats aren’t the answer either.” Their is little discussion of communism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, or the need for either. Everything is reduced to ambiguities and abstractions. Instead we hear about the need for things like “a better world.” All of this is reflected in the endless reformism of the RCP and its ancillary organizations, including Not In Our Name, Refuse & Resist!, and the new World Can’t Wait. However, what makes them different from groups like the ISO and other reformists and revisionists is their rather extreme and certifiably bizarre personality cult surrounding their leader, Bob Avakian.

The RCP website has an entire page devoted to Chairman Bob. If this isn’t enough, the rest of the site, and articles in Revolutionary Worker or Revolution revolve around the glorious leader. A more recent example is the RCP leaflet “The Battle For The Future Will Be Fought From Here Forward!” The tract begins with a strategy all too common in RCP literature: kitsch patronizing language used in an effort to sound patronizingly “down” with the struggle, and more importantly, with black people. “Straight up [author’s emphasis]--Bush and his people aren’t just ordinary Republicans. And they’re not ordinary Christians either. They are Christian Fascists--dangerous fanatics who aim to make the U.S. a religious dictatorship and to force this upon the world.” Straight up? Beyond this, the reader is treated to the typical RCP Bush-is-the-problem rhetoric, coupled in this case with a remarkably pedestrian, generic definition of fascism. Instead of the imminent danger posed by the class dictatorship of the rulers, the real problem, according to the RCP, is a “religious dictatorship.” Alas, I digress.

The rest of the leaflet continues on in this vein, but then switches tracks. In fact, it not only switches tracks, it is derailed with an insane conclusion. In the course of explaining the need for a communist society, the leaflet expounds, “Bob Avakian has brought forward a radical new ‘model’ and vision of what this socialist society must be all about.” This “radical new ‘model’” differs at no point from past socialist states, except perhaps in its adulation of Avakian himself, rather than the glorious leaders of the past. “This socialism, as envisioned by Bob Avakian, will embrace scientists, intellectuals, and artists” We are told this new society will “cherish the lives of the people of the world and uphold equality between nations and peoples and between men and women.” In what way this is different from traditional historical Marxism-Leninism is not explained, of course, because there is no difference.

The leaflet concludes by telling us there are two possible directions for the future: the darkness and repression of imperialism. Or, as the reader is told, “To put it another way, which vision will prevail: that of George W. Bush? Or of Bob Avakian?” As if facing Bob Avakian’s “vision” off against George Bush’s “vision” were not absurd enough, there is a separate panel on the leaflet entitled “Who is Bob Avakian?” As we shall see, it could just as easily parallel the best of Christian propaganda. “Have you accepted Jesus into your heart?”

This, comrades, is where we depart from reality, and step hesitantly through the looking glass. It is worth quoting what follows in its entirety:

“Anyone seriously thinking about revolution knows that it can’t happen without revolutionary leadership.

“It’s a huge question.

“Well, just to be up front, there IS a leader, the likes of which this country has never seen before, that can lead a mighty struggle to make revolution and remake society. That leader is Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party.

“Chairman Avakian knows revolution. He has studied deeply the revolutions of the past and taken up the responsibility for charting the course of revolution today. He has done a whole 're-envisioning' of communist society and what it will take to get there. He’s a leader with tremendous love for and confidence in the people; and he gives you confidence and hope that we can actually do what the times demand of all of us.

“But there’s more to his leadership than this. Chairman Avakian makes not just what he’s learned but how he analyzes things the property of the people. He knows it takes the great involvement of the people to make revolution, and he invites—and challenges—everyone into the process of struggle to know and change the world. It may seem ironic ... but the more that people wrestle with and follow his leadership, the greater will be their creative spirit, initiative, and activity. We in the RCP are fully aware that someone like Bob Avakian comes along only very rarely, and we take seriously our responsibility to defend this precious leader from the powers-that-be—and to rally others to do so as well.

“If you care at all about the world we’re in, you should check him out for yourselves. Get into Chairman Avakian’s historic DVD talk, REVOLUTION: Why It’s Necessary; Why It’s Possible; and What It’s All About.”

What is most stunning about the Avakian cult is the way in which nothing is attributed to the working class, or even the RCP, who believe themselves to be its “vanguard.” All power and glory is given unto Bob Avakian. What makes this text particularly ironic, of course, is its location in leaflet attacking the Christian Right. Yet the RCP merely replaces the looming figure of Jesus with that of their savior of the people, Bob Avakian. Can any sane person, let alone any communist, call this anything other than a cult of the personality?

Personality cults were a serious problem in the old communist movement, particularly those of Stalin and Mao. Both struggled against these cults in their inception, but eventually acquiesced, tolerated, and eventually began to enjoy their existence. Yet in both cases, their development was not unexplainable, and not always intentionally cultivated by the Party, as claimed by many anti-communist bourgeois historians. Russia had a history rooted in the Eastern Orthodox religion of icon worship. Likewise, the Chinese had thousands of years of history steeped in emperor worship. The historical conditions were such that personality cults like these, while not inevitable, were not certainly not without basis.

That said, communists in these examples should have struggled more with the masses to eradicate this sort of cultism. Amazingly, even in a pre-revolutionary period Avakian and his acolytes like Carl Dix in the leadership of the RCP have actively worked to create and expand a personality cult of “this precious leader” “the likes of which this country has never seen before” that not only mirrors those of the past, but exceeds them, as the example above should aptly demonstrate. Power does not rest in the working class or even its supposed revolutionary party, the RCP, but in Bob Avakian. Workers are not leaders--they must follow Avakian, who, in his infinite magnanimity, has truly blessed us by making his own analysis and wisdom “the property of the people.” The point is clear: the working class cannot make history. Not even the RCP makes history. Only Bob Avakian makes history, and he is kind enough to let the workers help. Additionally, workers can’t grasp Marxism or communist ideology, only Bob Avakian who, like Moses, has come down from the mountain to share his wisdom with the blind, backward masses.

Replace all the references to Bob Avakian with references to the RCP, and you would have a pretty standard leaflet, and other such literature. But this blatant personality cultism is an enemy of Marxism and an enemy of the working class. It is no more useful than any other religion. It places the faith of workers not in themselves, not in their own power, but in a leader who possesses almost supernatural qualities. It is wrong and dangerous for workers to put their faith in “leaders,” as they may eventually become corrupt and mislead. If the workers have faith only in themselves, they will throw out these misleaders. If, on the other hand, they have been raised in a cult of worship and non-criticism of leadership, they will accept and submit to this corruption. That Avakian actively nurtures this personality cult should be enough on its own--aside from the RCPs corrupt, false, revisionist “Maoism”--to demonstrate the utter fraudulence of his so-called “revolutionary communism.” Ultimately, it is merely reactionary anti-Bush reformism dressed up in Marxist verbiage and religious personality worship. Marx himself railed against anything “tending to encourage superstitious beliefs in authority.” Yet what else could the Cult of Avakian represent?

During Lenin’s life, he would not allow the construction off any monuments to himself. After his death, his wife, Krupskaya, begged that his body simply be buried, not interred in a mausoleum. She knew this was not what he would want, that it went against the grain of communism and workers’ power. Avakian, not yet dead, is already busy plastering his image and name anywhere he can. These are not the actions of a communist, they are the actions of an opportunist megalomaniac; in this case, one who fancies himself “exiled” (some would call this “extended vacationing”) in France.

What makes this so particularly sad is that rank-and-file RCPers, in particular their youth section, the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigades, are principled people who truly want communism. Yet they are being bamboozled and swindled by the likes of Bob Avakian, the “precious leader” without an ounce of shame or humility. These are the real victims of Avakian’s lunatic personality cult, and without them he could not sustain it, no matter how much money he dumped into it.

Nepal's "Revolution" Draws Near

2006-02-21T11:24:00.000-08:00

Revolution at the roof of the world is near. While it is unpredictable how long the crumbling monarchy can hold out, the Maoist army, which enjoys growing mass support throughout most of the Nepalese countryside, now appears unstoppable following the outcome of the recent municipal elections.

The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), in collusion with many of the major opposition parties, called for a boycott of the elections. Voter turnout was estimated at between ten and twenty percent of those eligible, and many electoral positions were not even filled. Despite this, and amid widespread international scrutiny of the municipal polling, the royal government claims the voting was a success, and plans to carry out parliamentary elections next year.

While at first many called only for increased freedom under the monarchy, after a long, draconian, and deadly government-imposed “state of emergency,” opposition organizations including the Maoist rebels are now demanding an end to the monarchy. The days of the Nepalese monarchy are numbered, leaving us not with the question if, but when the monarchy will fall.

At this stage, the Maoist-led People’s War does is not a fight for communism or even socialism, calling instead for what Mao Zedong described as a “New Democracy”--a democratic republic of opposition parties that will, as the theory goes, create the conditions necessary for socialist revolution. However, this theory is rotten to the core. All New Democracy really means is inserting an additional step towards communism after even the two-stage process has proven itself time and again to be a practical failure.

In other words, the CPN(M) has fought bravely and lost many lives to achieve everything short of even socialism. Yet, they are in a unique position in relationship to other such organizations to achieve communism, to make the greatest leap forward in practice since the socialist revolution of China, which was ultimately dismantled from the inside out, resulting in the return of capitalism.

The CPN(M) is part of the broader RIM, the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement. RIM is no stranger to PL; they are manifested in the United States by the RCP--that is, the Church of Bob Avakian--an ancillary fraternal organization of the Nepalese Maoists. Anyone familiar with the politics of groups like the RCP or the Shining Path will understand exactly why this means even if the CPN(M) seizes power as part of a destined-to-fail united front aiming for abstract “democracy,” it will never be able to lead that country to socialism, let alone communism.

In a recent interview with the BBC, Prachanda, the leader of the CPN(M) stated, “Ideologically [author’s emphasis] we want to move the global revolution forward. ... Globally the suppressed classes should get their rights, and that’s what we want.” In other words, ideologically we support communist revolution, but in practice, we’ll settle for bourgeois democracy. In addition, Prachanda said, “Three years ago at a Central Committee meeting of our party, analyzing the experience from 20th century communist states, we put forward a proposal for the development of democracy. In the 21st century we cannot have a state like those of the 20th century. That’s why our Central Committee passed this paper on the development of democracy in the 21st century. The spirit of this paper is that there should be peaceful competition between all political parties against feudalism and foreign imperialist forces.”

For the Nepalese people, this means even a “socialist” republic may never be achieved. For us in PLP, we are in caught in a contradiction. We must support the just armed struggle of the Nepalese People’s War against the repressive, fascist monarchy while simultaneously opposing the New Democratic national liberation programme of the Maoist leadership. If the people of Nepal were organized under an organization that called for communist revolution instead of New Democracy, under the present historical circumstances they would likely achieve it. Instead, the leadership of the CPN(M) is bent on digging the graves of its own rank and file by ignoring the total failure of any past “national” struggle, involving communists in a “united front” strategy, to bring about communism. Did the workers and peasants of past “national” liberation movements really die so that future movements would make the same mistake? You can’t turn nationalism into communism any more than you can turn lead into gold.

As communists, we must demand the whole world and nothing less. We send our hearts and our revolutionary solidarity to the brave fighters against the monarchy and those all over Nepal struggling for a better world. Ultimately, it is a pipe dream to imagine the CPN(M) will magically realize their unique historical opportunity and, in the end, call not for a democratic republic in alliance with the representative parties of other classes, but for a communist dictatorship of the proletariat at the roof of the world. That would truly be a glorious day. Unfortunately, the Shining Path has already tried what the CPN(M) tries for now. Marx once wrote, “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.” The Maoists will take Nepal, probably sooner than later, and we shall witness the farce.